Untangling the Indian Sundew muddle - Video

[Siggi_Hartmeyer]

Even in 1753, Linnaeus described the Indian Sundew (Drosera indica) officially. In our film, we are especially happy to show the herbal records that existed at that time with the kind permission by the Trustees of the Natural History Museum London (GBR) and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden (NLD). Despite their different appearance, between 1753 to 2001 all spider leg sundews (Drosera section Arachnopus) occuring from Africa over Asia to Australia were identified as D. indica. Some early attempts to assign plants as separate species, such as by Planchon in 1848, failed because the distinguishing characteristics were not considered sufficient and/or reliable.

Eventually in 2017, we were able to examine also the micromorphology of the "real" D. indica and found emergences, which were obviously misinterpreted and/or ignored in the existing literature. Until today, the spider leg sundews are often confused and therefore incorrectly labeled in botanical gardens as well as private collections. With our film "Untangling the Indian Sundew Muddle" we hope to be helpful to assign D. indica correctly. We are very grateful for the kind support by taxonomy expert Dr. Jan Schlauer, for the provision of seeds from the "real" D. indica by Gideon Lim and the photos of D. barrettiorum by Holger & Anja Hennern.